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Guns and Roses

These horrible mass shootings break my heart. I just sobbed as babies looked at representatives and took them to task for not being better. These kids are so sure if their representatives do better, tragedy won’t strike again. 

There’s no behavior analytic definition to define grief. 

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Story of my life on a shirt ladies and gents

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Ryan Gosling, BCBA

It needs some work, but we’ll forgive him because he’s Ryan Gosling

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When someone accuses behavior analysis of being a small field

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❤

Preventing an autistic person from stimming is probably on par with taking a quadraplegic person’s wheelchair joystick away, taking a deaf person’s sign language away or taking a blind person’s Braille away.

Autistic people NEED to stim to function, dammit! You wouldn’t punish or shame physically disabled people who use mobility aids, tactile reading or sign language to function, so why does anyone think it’s okay to punish and shame autistic people for doing something that helps them function?

Parents, if you suppress your child’s stimming, you are being ableist and you are abusing them. It’s okay to teach them alternative stims or give them a quiet stim toy if you need them to be quiet, but you should NEVER, I mean NEVER, teach your child that stimming is bad and needs to stop.

If you are autistic and were shamed or abused for stimming– it’s NOT your fault. It was wrong of anyone to stop your stims and I hope you learn it’s okay to stim again. YOU are not broken!

Please reblog this around. Spread autism acceptance. I am autistic. My voice matters because I decided it does. ALL autistic voices matter.

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Just manding for the chicken that was in the bag. Nbd.

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Aspergers or autism, Chantal you are a treasure and this post made my day.

Hi! My name is Chantal. I was diagnosed with aspergers but I just like to say I’m autistic because its easier. My special interest ever since I was little is horses. I’ve been training for working with horses and at barns for the past few months. I so have other special interests but horses have been my special interest the strongest and the longest.

Submitted by @warriorprincess1995

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I’ve been wanting to make Verbal Behavior notecards for a while. My supervisor for my clinic hours uses them in her practice/my first job, and she got the idea from “The Verbal Behavior Approach” by Dr. Mary Lynch Barbera. I’m told traditionally these cards are made with VB-MAPP goals, but my supervisor uses the ABLLS. I haven’t ever asked her why, but my guess is because the ABLLS is more specific. 

The idea behind this form of data collection is that you put targets on these cards and use them as permanent product data collection in your session. It makes orchestrating behavioral momentum ahead of time easy (I put three maintenance targets before a newer target). By minimizing the time you spend writing skill data down, it gives you a chance to go faster and keep the speed right for the kid. 

BCBAs who have been practicing for a while can usually keep the speed and document at the same time, but as a former RBT I can testify that juggling the behavior documentation and skill documentation is difficult. Permanent product recording just makes sense for newbies and oldies in the field.

Another benefit is easier error correction. I put the missed card in a second pile and present it after each new card till the client gets it right the first time it’s presented. Also, it keeps the clinician from falling into the trap of repeatedly targeting the same maintenance skills. When you have every mastered skill on it’s own card, you can’t be unintentionally biased. 

The idea behind these cards is that you color code based on skill. Dr. Barbera suggests certain colors in her book, but those aren’t hard rules. As Barbosa in Pirates of the Caribbean would say “They’re more like guidelines, anyway.”

I’ve decided to separate using the following color code:

Feature/Function/Class Cards: Purple

Tact Cards: White

Yellow: Intraverbals

Imitation: Green

Blue: Receptive Directions

As far as manding goes, that’s best targeted in NET (natural environment training). The typical pattern of my sessions includes a structured “table time” that includes puzzles, books, and the above mix of cards with built in pairing and NET training breaks. 

I should also mention, most clinicians build a deck of cards for each client special after the intake. I am choosing to make and organize cards for every applicable ABLLS target now that way if I need them they’re made and organized for me to pull for each client. 

I chose to get cards with a pre-hole punched ring even though that’s not required because I like the idea of storing them this way in the client’s materials. Simple to attach to a cloth bag. I have seen other people get the notecard organizers and tab each section of maintenance, new targets, maintenance tacts, and new tacts. However, sometimes my special friends like to swipe materials off the table. When that happens, I prefer they be on a ring as opposed to fly free. Less time to escape from task, that way.

This task would be appropriate to gain indirect hours for other people working on their 1500 or 2000!

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Material: (as pictured) Hedbanz Junior Who: Kids that would benefit from a visual prompt will have adequate built in support to play. This is a good game to use for someone who is adept with their high or low tech AAC device, as well. Ages 5 and up. Why: This is a great intermediate game to play when a client is ready to fade prompts and generalize but are not ready to play the traditional Hedbanz game which comes with a time limit and more than one class of card. In this version, players are only trying to guess an animal. There are two visuals included in the junior version: one that has all the possible cards pictured and organized by animal habitat and a personal visual to help players eliminate options based off of the yes/no questions asked. You can use both or only one while you play. The large visual with all the cards would be useful for non-vocal players. The children could point to their guess with ease if they are already familiar with navigating a communication device. Where: I purchased mine at Wal-Mart! I looked at Amazon and it is not available through their website, yet. Goal Brain Storm: You could use this game to target yes/no questions, categories, feature/function/class with an emphasis on features, turn taking, winning and losing, tacting animals, and multiple articulation targets. The game is best for people ready to generalize these skills. It can either be played between clinician and client, group therapy or in a social skills group.